Bitter melon

royal75 · Mon Sep 28, 2015 2:18 pm

What is the best time of the season to plant bitter melon?

pepperhead212 · Mon Sep 28, 2015 3:32 pm

I plant it like cukes - indoors a couple weeks before last frost.

royal75 · Mon Sep 28, 2015 5:41 pm

What do you mean by indoors? inside your house? Before last frost you mean by the end of winter? Thanks for answering me(-:

imafan26 · Mon Sep 28, 2015 7:59 pm

Bitter melon is a warm season crop. It grows best when temperatures are over 70, but it is not frost tolerant. So grow it in early summer.

pepperhead212 · Mon Sep 28, 2015 8:53 pm

Sorry I was vague, royal75. I did that at the end of my lunchbreak, and should have waited 'til I got home!

By inside, I mean in trays under lights; like the cucumbers, squash, and other cucurbits, I don't grow them indoors for long - only about 3 weeks - since they are vining plants, they take off fast. They are warm weather plants, but putting them out around the time I put eggplants out - a week after tomatoes and a week before peppers - doesn't seem to bother them. In my area this is around 5-10, and the starting indoors gives a few weeks earlier harvest.

royal75 · Tue Sep 29, 2015 4:43 am

I did not understand your first answer not because you were not clear, I live in the middle East and we simply don't use the terms first frost or last frost to indicate a spacific time of season we just say early spring, early summer etc..